We all watched the television show Combat and watched a cavalcade of patriotic war movies made during World War Two. Fueled by these manly spectacles, we would often get together and fight each other in big battle scenes. The Howes Tree Nursery adjacent to our property was a great place for us to stage the war. If they dug up a tree, the root system left a perfectly-sized foxhole that would allow a number of heroic boys to dodge imaginary bullets. Dirt clumps made great grenades, and even exploded dust when they hit the ground. We recreated the Battle of the Bulge in France, or we were on the way to Berlin to defeat Hitler. We used to set the ground rules before the battle. “You three are the GI’s moving forward towards us from the road over there, the rest of us will be here trying to defend the homeland. Now if you get shot you have to die and stay dead until the battle is over. If you were behind a tree you were safe, but if you were on the run, or were brave enough to charge in the open, you were fair game.” That pretty much meant to had to act out being shot, and falling on the ground cussing out the man who shot you and saying something patriotic like, “Ugh. You miserable Kraut.” The toy manufacturers helped the fantasy game by offering more realistic weapons, guns that looked like real infantry weapons like the M1 carbine, Mauser, and Lugar. We also started to collect some of the infantry gear like helmets and ammo belts. There would be an occasional arguments over who shot who first. We would even set up firing squads or take soldiers prisoner, only to shoot them as they tried to escape. It was kind like the video games teenagers play now, only we would design the game as we went along, and the whole event was staged in a real virtual set. Paintball would have been an awesome upgrade for us, but it wouldn’t be in popular use for another 25 years. When I got shot I would follow the rules and just lie there and think that this must have been what it was like to be shot in a tree forest alone during the war. Looking up at the sky, knowing I’d never see my family again, and hear the battle continuing and not being able to stand up and help my friends. Later, as the Vietnam Conflict began to escalate, it was those feelings that I remembered. Feelings that were grounded in the reality that, being a male, I might be asked to do this for real. It was a frightening realization that molded my opinion of Vietnam and war in general. After a long battle which probably took an hour or so to complete, it was back to the house for some potato chips and a cream soda.